Newcastle Homeless Forum Meeting Notes – 6thMarch 2013

  1. Notes of the Dec 2012 meeting and matters arising

The notes were agreed.

  1. Standing Items
  2. News

The People’s Kitchen are strengthening links with professional services to improve their service to users and have also recruited new volunteers. Ron Eager House and Joseph Cowen staffhave been running drop-ins at the centre and People’s Kitchen are looking to add sessions around substance misuse, money management and debt.

Fairbridge has merged with the Prince’s Trust.

Outpost is merging with the Albert Kennedy Trust which currently operates services in London and Manchester. The merge will take place around April / May 2013.

  • Service User Views

Reminder that agencies are encouraged to feedback service user views to the Forum.

Concerns were raised about the impact of the bedroom tax and other welfare reform activities.

Action: To circulate ‘key messages’ from NCC to the group.

  • Housing Benefit

Any services experiencing problems with housing benefit should contact Angela Emmerson in Revenues and Benefits: 0191 277 7608 /

  • Job Centre Liaison

Frank McEnaney, Welfare RightsManager, is the liaison between agencies supporting homeless clients and the Job Centre. Any services experiencing problems with the Job Centre should contact Frank: 0191 2788476 /

Action: Circulate contact form to group

  • Welfare reform

Shelter has been commissioned via the Regional Homeless Group to provide support and training to supported housing providers in the North East. As part of this they will be identifying and advising and campaigning on region-wide issues.

Shelter reminded attendees that from 1st April they will no longer be able to take on debt and legal services work – advice will be restricted to welfare benefits work only. In addition to this, the Council is losing 5 FTEs from the Welfare Rights Service.

Debt and money advice services in the city are currently being promoted to try and reduce the effect of the coming changes. The debt advice toolkit contains details of free debt advice services in Newcastle. (link?)

Private Rented Service – ongoing use of meetings and forums to give landlords information about the changes and possibly effects on tenants and conference on 5th March held on welfare reform. Landlords have requested a toolkit which is in development. Neil Munslow suggested linking this in with the Financial Inclusion Toolkit.

Universal Credit – from October, benefit claimants will be expected to do everything online. The digital inclusion agenda is partly being led by Adult Education and Libraries.

Action: circulate link to Universal Credit Local Support Services framework to group.

  • Access to secure housing

The Supported Housing Move On panel meets monthly to look at clients in supported accommodation who are ready to move on to independent tenancies. The meetings can offer advice and support to providers trying to move clients on and will be used to identify barriers and how they can be addressed.

The Private Rented Service have been working with landlords to increase access, including using incentives such as the rent deposit guarantee scheme and insurance scheme.

Action: Circulate details of RDGS

  • Rough sleepers

The numbers of rough sleepers found each night is constant at around 4-8 people per night, however, many of these actually have accommodation which they are choosing not to occupy.

Since No Second Night Out went live there have been 17 clients found who were new to the streets and 7 of these met NSNO criteria. The majority of NSNO enquiries relate to begging not rough sleeping, and many of the rough sleepers are not from the Newcastle area.

Evictions from supported housing are being monitored to confirm compliance with guidelines; only 1 case has been disputed in the last 3 months.

Please contact Gemma Waldron with any queries about rough sleepers -tel: 0191 277 1742/ Email: .

  • Hostel and HMO standards

Any concerns about standards in hostels and HMOs, particularly non-Council funded and regulated services e.g. private B&Bs, shouldbe raised via the Active Inclusion Newcastle Unit who will liaise with Regulatory Services. Tel: 0191 277 1707 / .

  • Prevention from eviction

The commonestreason for rough sleeping in Newcastleis eviction from a hostel; however, we have no comparative data from other core cities.

Building links with social landlords is also important. For example YHN have 7000 tenants impacted by the bedroom tax with a potential loss of £4m per year. The combined impact of Universal Credit and the loss of direct payments mean YHN risk losing £400m as a result of welfare reform.

  • Activities, training and employment

Prince’s Trust - gave details of programmes and outdoor activities available; advised they can support providers with their client activities and develop bespoke sessions if necessary.

Crisis –running employability events week commencing 8/4

  • Funding Opportunities

NCVS circulate information about funding opportunities.If you wish to subscribe please send an email with your name, email address and organisation name with ‘subscribe to NCVS e-inform’ in the subject heading

For further information about funding opportunities is available in the weekly briefing from Homeless Link. To receive this briefing, contact Becky Elton, North East Regional Manager. Tel: 07798 631 367 / Email:

  1. NewcastleCity Council Budget 2013 - 16

Neil Munslow gave a presentation detailing the budget for the Crisis Response workstream, and explained the restructuring that will occur from April. There has been a 37% cut to directly delivered services across Housing and Welfare Rights Services, and there are staff losses across all aspects of the services. There will be an impact on providers in 2013-14 when a £1.1m cut (24%) will be made to the SP budget. A consultation on how to manage these cuts will begin in April 2013. Information about the budget proposals can be found at:

  1. Social Fund replacement schemes

Sophie Reid-McGlinn delivered a presentation on the local welfare provision replacing Crisis Loans and Community Care Grants from 1 April 2013.

The Crisis Support Scheme (CSS) replaces Crisis Loans and will be a non-repayable grant of food, direct payments for fuel to heat the home, food, clothing vouchers and travel. Access will be only for households who have suffered a crisis or disaster where there is a risk to the health and safety of a member of the household and insufficient income to meet basic needs. Applications can be made online or by telephone directly or via support workers. Further information on the scheme and eligibility criteria can be found at

The Supporting Independence Scheme (SIS) replaces Community Care Grants and will be a non-repayable grant of basic household items or removal / storage services. Access will be for households in receipt of resettlement or sustainment support with no other access to the required items, where these are essential to maintaining an independent tenancy. Applications can be made by support workers via Newcastle Gateway. Further information on the scheme and eligibility criteria can be found at

  1. New allocations policy

Julie Markham, Housing Allocations and Lettings Officer, gave an update on the allocations policy for Tyne and Wear Homes, which has been in operation since April 2012. Attendees were invited to feed back their thoughts on and experiences of the new allocations policy to Julie Markham directly. Tel: 01912777859 Email: .

  1. Youth Homeless North East

Sharon Brown gave a presentation on the work of the organisation. Further information is available online at

Accommodation providers were also reminded to make sure thatbed lists were regularly provided to the Housing Benefit team as this should make identifying those people who qualify for exemption regarding the single room rate easier.

  1. Action Foundation

Julian Prior gave a presentation on the work of the organisation in providing charitable assistance to refused asylum seekers and new refugees. Julian also circulated leaflets to attendees. Further information is available at

  1. AOB

No other business was raised.

  1. Date and time of next meeting
  2. Wednesday 5thJune 2013at 10am– Swan Parsons room

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